We’re packed for Oxen Hill competition and on our way to unload at the venue tonight! We’ll setup the Pit in preparation for matches tomorrow, which start after opening ceremonies at 10:30a.
Follow our team’s match schedule and standing from this link.
https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/116
Join us at Oxon Hill High School on Mar 23 and 24 to see the Week 4 competition! https://goo.gl/maps/NcT31Fr6zJU2
The team has been working hard to use the unbagged time before our second competition at Oxen Hill. Tonight we plan to finish some pneumatic tube runs, continue wiring sensors, and replace the motor on our Tipper sub-system for moar power!
Join us at Oxon Hill High School on Mar 23 and 24 to see the Week 4 competition! https://goo.gl/maps/NcT31Fr6zJU2
As part of the FIRST Chesapeake District, Team 116 will attend the District events at Haymarket (Mar 1-3) and Oxen Hill (Mar 22-24.) We have a lot to do before our Week 1 competition!
Driver tryouts are happening as this is typed! The team withheld the Catch and Lift mechanisms to allow time to finish assembling the end effector. The software team is busy with vision and OI programming. The controls team is considering sensors to make the drivers’ jobs easier. And the doughnuts are gone.
Congrats on finishing build season!!!!! There is a lot of hard work now sitting in a bag.
The meeting schedule is as follows:
We need to finish the mechanisms that are outside of the bag, pack for competition, do driver tryouts and use our 6 hours of unbagged time.
Every group has presented their Preliminary Design Review! They all have an idea about their respective design and a plan to move forward. Next week will see Critical Design Review for most groups, while the Frame+Mobility subgroup starts to cut and assemble the frame.
The team has been effected by late starts and early school closings in the week of Jan 13. We have been meeting at Nova Labs when possible but it’s not as productive as having shop access.
The frame and mobility team, aka BAMF, gave their PDR presentation. The other groups are close to prepared for their presentations and are working as fast as the weather allows.
Try again nature – we’re meeting at Nova Labs — 6p tonight Jan 14 — and there’s nothing you can do to stop us from building this year’s robot!
P.S. Please don’t smite us with a hurricane-blizzard-tornado-quake. At least, wait till after build season, thanks.
Firstly, there is the possibility of snow over the weekend. Look for an email from Kelsey about meeting update before you leave on Saturday.
The team spent the week in brainstorming solutions to play the game, and learned a lot from doing it. Now we meet in subgroups to plan for PDR and solve the specific challenges.
There are a few different ideas floating around for each manipulator system. Some parts arrived yesterday and we were able to test suction on the cargo, and if it will seal. There was enough vacuum to shatter the make-shift suction cup!
About 30 students, parents, and mentors came to the high school to watch the kickoff presentation on Saturday! We had a great potluck spread for breakfast and enthusiasm for the new game. We were excited to see the game, Destination: Deep Space — everyone immediately started brainstorming ideas and preparing for Stubots the next day.
Stay tuned for more updates as we iterate ideas and prototype solutions!
The Cornerstones organization has provided educational services to homeless and underprivileged youth in the Northern Virginia area.
Team116 teamed up with LEGO outreach to bring STEM and team-building to these kids in our community. We helped kids build and design monsters, hotels, and introduced them to the concept of team building and working with a creative process. Our team had a lot of fun hanging out with the Cornerstones staff and we hope that we can partner with them again in the future.
Our team members were hands on with the kids to help them build several structures. We helped them with their preliminary designs and worked with their creative ideas.
In some cases, the kids would work in teams before integrating their structures. Working carefully, they would combine their ideas and builds, similar to robot subsystems, to finish a completed structure that could stand on it’s own.
We would like to wish everyone in the northern Virginia area happy holidays – we were very thankful to be able to spend some time with the underprivileged kids in our community.